Saint Otto of Bamberg

Saint Otto of Bamberg was bishop of Bamberg in Germany and a missionary who in the twelfth century brought the Gospel to Western Pomerania. He is called the apostle of Pomerania. The Church commemorates him on June 30, the day of his death.

He came from Swabia, from a noble family. The exact year of his birth is not known: dates from about 1060 to about 1065 are given. As a young cleric he came to Poland, where he earned his living by teaching. There he was a chaplain at the court of Duke Władysław Herman and his wife Judith, sister of Emperor Henry IV.

In the 1090s he entered the service of Emperor Henry IV. He directed the building of the cathedral of Speyer, and in 1102 he briefly headed the imperial chancery. At the end of that year the emperor appointed him bishop of Bamberg. During the Investiture Controversy between the papacy and the empire, Otto refused to be consecrated by a schismatic bishop. He received episcopal consecration only on May 13, 1106, in Anagni, from Pope Paschal II.

As bishop he rebuilt the cathedral of Bamberg after a fire, cared for the poor, and founded or renewed some thirty monasteries and other church foundations. He worked for the reconciliation of pope and emperor, which was sealed by the Concordat of Worms in 1122. Pope Benedict XVI called him an exemplary shepherd of his diocese who brought the Gospel to the Pomeranians.

When Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth, son of Władysław Herman, had brought Pomerania under his rule, he invited Otto to baptize its people. With the pope’s consent the bishop set out in May 1124 and reached Pomerania by way of Bohemia and Gniezno. He won people over by calm, kindly preaching and by generous gifts. In June of that year he baptized at Pyrzyce, and then preached the Gospel at Kamień Pomorski, Szczecin, and Wolin. According to his medieval biographers, more than 22,000 people were baptized during this journey; Otto also founded eleven churches. In 1125 he returned to Bamberg.

When paganism began to revive in Pomerania, Otto set out there again in 1128, this time by way of Magdeburg. On the solemnity of Pentecost he spoke at Usedom to an assembly of nobles, who resolved to accept baptism. He also preached the Gospel at Wolgast and Gützkow, strengthened the communities at Szczecin and Wolin, and returned to Bamberg at the end of the year.

He died in Bamberg on June 30, 1139, and was buried in the abbey of Saint Michael. In 1140 Pope Innocent II established the bishopric of Pomerania with its see at Wolin, a fruit of his mission. In 1189, by order of Pope Clement III, he was proclaimed a saint at Würzburg. In 1972 the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, made him the second patron of the Diocese of Szczecin-Kamień. In 1987, in the cathedral of Szczecin, John Paul II asked that the saint’s relics kept there be surrounded with the deepest veneration.